2 more dead dolphins found on Mississippi, Alabama beaches

Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies at Gulfport, Mississippi.

GULFPORT, Mississippi -- Two more dead dolphins have been found on Mississippi and Alabama beaches, bringing the total to 32 that have been discovered since January.

Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, said his teams are being dispatched to Dauphin Island in Alabama and Singing River Island in Mississippi to investigate the sightings.

NOAA is joining the probe into the deaths of about two dozen baby dolphins along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts that some experts are calling unusual.

Trevor Spradlin, a fisheries biologist with NOAA, said this month's rash of dead dolphin calves has been declared an "unusual mortality event," which necessitates strict testing protocols.

"You'll see people hustling to make sure the right labs are selected and quality samples collected in a timely manner," he said.

Determining what killed the dolphins may take months, he said.

"We are dealing with a very unusual mortality," said Solangi. "It is mostly calves. Generally when you see a stranding it is a variety of animals - adults, males, females, young."

Of 30 dead dolphins found since January, 24 have been babies, Solangi said Wednesday.

"We have seen in the last two weeks a big spike in calves," he told The Mississippi Press. "Some are stillborn. Some are premature."

Solangi said January and February are not the typical season for dolphins to give birth.

"This year, February isn't even over and we have, as of now, 23 that we've handled and they are all calves."

The gestation period for dolphins is 12 months, he said. "So, they would have been conceived in March, April or May of last year and they would have given birth in March, April or May of this year. Something has happened that these animals are now either aborting or the animals are not fit enough to survive," Solangi said.

He said, "It is all the way from Alabama to Mississippi."

Solangi said the cause of death could range from infectious disease, environmental factors such as cold water, natural cyclical changes in population or could be directly or indirectly related to the BP PLC oil spill.

The baby dolphins found are 2-½ to 3 feet long, he said.

Solangi said there have been no reports of unusual fish or turtle kills.